She Looks Away
by ThisAccountIsNowInactive354085
Summary: Why won't she look away? Lily/Narcissa.


_She Looks Away  
Author: themajoritylied_

_Disclaimer: Nothing's mine but the plot!_

_Pairing: Lily/Narcissa_

The first time they meet, she's just boarding the Hogwarts Express and she turns to see a girl with the most _brazenly _red hair Narcissa had ever encountered. The girl's excited, bouncing around like a particularly obnoxious garden gnome- it's unseemly, and yet Narcissa wants to join her.

There's a tug at her hand and she looks up, and Bella's glaring at the girl so Narcissa quickly looks back just so she can glare as well.

The girl doesn't notice at all because Bella's already scared her away, and it annoys Narcissa to no end because she's a _Black_, for Merlin's sake, and a Black should _never _be ignored.

It doesn't matter that the girl's not really ignoring her at all.

It's Narcissa's third year before she sees the little girl with the red hair again. She's scrawny and just as excitable as ever, while Narcissa's already slender and elegant, having been raised in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. But that can't be the only reason- she looks at Sirius, who's sitting with the dog and that wretched Potter boy (he's got a thing for the red-headed girl, but she won't ever look his way), and a sneer taints her lovely features. Only her blood-traitor cousin would fall for a person who wasn't a person at all (yes, she knew, even then, she knew).

Narcissa feels eyes on the back of her head and she glances up to see Bella standing over her, smiling _that_ smile that makes Narcissa's blood run cold. But she's not afraid of Bella- she's not afraid of a Black. They're the only ones anyone can trust, after all- the blue-blooded name that they live by breeds off of the walls and boundaries.

Then Bella's sitting between herself and that Tom boy that she's been fawning over for so long- it's not like Bella to let her guard down so easily, and Narcissa's always been wary of the slender, handsome boy with the eyes like coal. Bella laughs at something he says (a harsh, cough-like sound), and turns to sneer spitefully at the Gryffindor table.

Narcissa doesn't know why she hates them so much, just that Bella does.

Narcissa glares at the red-headed girl, who finally has the grace to look up and notice the Slytherin's disdain.

Narcissa glares and she glares until the girl is shamed into staring down at her plate except that she's not. She holds Narcissa's eyes and Narcissa's momentarily stunned because she's got the _greenest _eyes she's ever seen. Then Bella follows her gaze and fixes the red-headed girl with the strange eyes with a challenging stare and the girl looks away.

Narcissa purses her lips and stabs at her mutilated salad because why was the girl not afraid of _her_?

It's her fifth year and she finally learns the girl's name: Lily Evans. It's funny because it doesn't suit her at all, not really. They've got Potions together because Lily's advanced for her age and she's Sluggy's favorite, along with Tom. Bella's still mooning over him, though Narcissa can't imagine why. She supposes he's a good bit better looking than Lucius, though.

One day they're paired up for an assignment because that bloody Slughorn believes in interhouse comradeship even though no one else does. Narcissa sits back in her chair, her feet poised on the stone table, pushing her chair back onto two legs, and lets Lily come to _her_. For the entire hour, Lily's working on the potion while Narcissa sits back and watches her idly- she's not said a single word to Narcissa besides asking for ingredients ("are you incapacitated as well as filthy, Evans?"). However to Narcissa's amusement, her position seems to annoy Lily to no ends, and the girl is constantly shoving Narcissa's chair back onto the floor, even though Narcissa just kicks her feet back up an instant later.

At the end of the class, their potion's awarded a perfect score and James is waiting for Lily in the corridor. Narcissa smirks at the grimace on the girl's freckled face as she watches Bella saunter down the corridor with her usual posse and coal-black eyeshadow.

Out of the corner of her eye, Narcissa sees Lily look away and again wonders why Bella's the only one who can make her. She's a bloody Black, too, and _Merlin _help her if she's going to let little Evans and her barbarian friends forget it.

In Narcissa's sixth year, she saunters around with the group of lower-level aristocratic wanna-be's she's inherited from Bella during the day and runs her lips over the soft, freckled skin at night.

One night Lily's pulling away every time Narcissa tries to come closer and finally Narcissa's had enough. She draws Lily to the edge of the emerald covers so that her bare legs are hanging down over the side and crawls between them on her knees, staring into those jade eyes and she thinks this had better work because she's a _Black_, and Blacks never get on their knees for _anyone_, especially Mudbloods.

But for Lily, she does.

And it works, because Lily's smiling again, her bottom lip caught between her front teeth, and Narcissa braces herself on Lily's knees as she leans up to plant a kiss on those lips. Slowly, Narcissa raises herself to her feet and pushes Lily back onto the covers, hard enough to show who's in charge of this relationship but not so that it hurts her.

And she should _want _to hurt her, really.

That's the whole reason she shoved Lily into the Restricted Section in the first place- she told herself she'd break the little red-headed girl's heart and maybe then she'd turn away from Narcissa like she had from Bella. Maybe _that _would teach her to challenge a Black.

But she doesn't, not really.

She doesn't, and it terrifies her.

It's seventh year, and it's Narcissa's last night before she leaves Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry behind.

Leaves _Lily _behind.

She's to wed Lucius Malfoy as soon as she's back in the House of Black- back where she _belongs_. Lily's not talking to her.

"Darling, you're being ridiculous," she remarks as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "How long have you known this was going to happen?"

Lily shrugs.

"And it's not as if this was ever anything," Narcissa adds, though she's really, _really _glad Lily doesn't have any veritiserum for some unknown reason. "Face it, doll- I'm a pureblood and I'm going to be queen. You're a Mudblood and you'll marry the Potter boy and have two point five children and a dog- I'll lend you my cousin if you like."

"Bitch," Lily mutters, and her voice is paper thin- so fragile, like all the life- all that bloody _energy _has been sapped right out of her.

Narcissa turns to Lily, who's contradicting her words by looking up at her with the saddest eyes Narcissa's ever seen (they're not _sparkling _anymore) and then, finally (_finally_), she seems to recoil and those jade eyes dart away.

And Narcissa knows she should be happy- it's what she's been waiting for since that first day on the train, after all. But instead there's a _hole_ and its edges are fraying rapidly and Narcissa's suddenly so hollow that she thinks maybe her entire body could fall in on itself, into the hole as dark and as unending as her name.

And then she's _falling_ into it and she knows she'll never climb back out.

Nineteen years later and all Narcissa can think about is Lily and that look in those challenging, unafraid jade eyes just before she turned away.

She looks to her right and watches as a flash of green explodes from Bella's wand and she catches a glimpse of her sister's eyes- her expression is mad and sadistic, but those eyes…

Her eyes are empty, and suddenly Narcissa finds herself thinking that they'd _always_ been like that.

_Why won't she look away from _me_?_

"Not my daughter, you bitch!"

'_Bitch...'_

A flash of bright white, and Bella falls to the ground. Tom (he calls himself by a different name nowadays) glances down at her body with a look of barely concealed disdain and calls Narcissa over, gesturing to the cloaked body on the cool ground.

She kneels down beside the body (it's a boy) and after a moment his eyes flutter open and Narcissa finds herself back in the Head Girl's suite, looking down at those determined jade eyes that had met hers every time in an unspoken challenge.

'_I love you,' _she whispers, like a secret because it is and she's been keeping it for _years _now, but Lily won't look at her and Narcissa realizes she's not there at all, and her stomach twists uncomfortably as she's yanked back to the present and reality hits like a bucket of icy water. The boy's looking up at her and she asks the only question she can think of.

"Is he alive?"

The boy nods weakly, and she stands up, her decision made. "He's not breathing," she reports to her husband's lord (for no one will _ever _rule over a Black). He trusts her blindly, because who would be stupid enough to lie to _him_?

When he's gone, Narcissa glances down at Bella's body and feels a clenching in her own chest.

She sinks to the ground, her face shielded by the large folds of the black cloak as her slender body is wracked with sobs from she can't remember when.

"I'm not you," she chokes out and even though it's nineteen years too late it's like an unspoken weight is finally lifted from her chest. "I'm _not_."

And she isn't.

Not anymore.


End file.
